Return to home Saint's day of Theodosia, martyred in 729 in
Constantinople.
(Ot, 1993, p.1) 526 May 29,
Antioch, Turkey, was struck by an earthquake and about 250,000 died.
[see May 20]
(AM, 11/00, p.69)(SC, 5/29/02)

757 May 29, St. Paul I (d.767)
began his reign as Catholic Pope.
(PTA, 1980, p.188)(SC, 5/29/02)

1453 May 29, Constantinople
fell to Muhammad II, ending the Byzantine Empire. The fall of the
eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, to the Ottoman Turks was led by
Mehmed II. Emperor Constantine XI Dragases (49), the 95th ruler to
sit on the throne of Constantine, was killed. The city of
Constantinople fell from Christian rule and was renamed Istanbul.
The Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque. Spice prices soared in
Europe. Nicolo Barbaro wrote his "Diary of the Siege of
Constantinople." Manuel Chrysophes, court musician to Constantine
XI, wrote a threnody for the fall of Constantinople. In 2005 Roger
Crowley authored “1453 The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash
of Islam and the West."
(NH, 9/96, p.22)(Sky, 4/97, p.53)(SFC, 7/27/98,
p.A8)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)(ON, 10/00, p.12)(Ot, 1993, p.6)(WSJ,
1/2/02, p.A15)(SSFC, 8/14/05, p.F4)
1453 May 29, French banker
Jacques Coeurs had his possessions confiscated.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1630 May 29, Charles Stuart
(d.1685), later Charles II, king of England (1660 to 1685), was
born. He was the son of Charles I. Charles II was restored to the
English throne after the Puritan Commonwealth. Charles made a deal
with George Monck, a general of the New Model Army, and with the old
parliamentary foes of his father. The British experiment with
republicanism came to an end with the restoration of Charles II.
(V.D.-H.K.p.218)(WUD, 1994, p.249)(SFC, 5/25/96,
p.A12)(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A20)(HN, 5/29/98)(WSJ, 2/28/00, p.A36)
1630 May 29, Gov. John Winthrop
began his "History of New England."
(SC, 5/29/02)

1652 May 29, English Admiral
Robert Blake drove out the Dutch fleet under Lieutenant-Admiral
Tromp.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1660 May 29, Charles II (30),
who had fled to France, was restored to the English throne after the
Puritan Commonwealth. Charles made a deal with George Monck, a
general of the New Model Army, and with the old parliamentary foes
of his father. The British experiment with republicanism came to an
end with the restoration of Charles II.
(V.D.-H.K.p.218)(WSJ, 5/6/97, p.A20)(WSJ,
2/28/00, p.A36)(ON, 8/12, p.5)
1660 May 29, Gyorgy Rakosi II
prince of Transylvania, died in battle.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1660 May 29, Peter Scriverius
(44), lawyer, historian, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1673 May 29, Cornelis van
Bijnkershoek, lawyer, president of High Council, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1721 May 29, South Carolina was
formally incorporated as a royal colony.
(HN, 5/29/98)

1730 May 29, William Jackson,
composer, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1731 May 29, Orazio Mei
composer, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1736 May 29, Patrick Henry
(d.1799), American Colonial patriot, orator and governor of
Virginia, was born. He was a slave-owner and justified the fact by
saying: “I am driven along by the general inconvenience of living
here without them." He later said "Give me liberty or give me
death."
(SFC,12/897, p.A27)(HN, 5/29/01)

1765 May 29, Patrick Henry
denounced the Stamp Act before Virginia's House of Burgesses. It was
during this speech that Henry supposedly responded to cries of
"Treason!" by declaring, "If this be treason, make the most of it,"
according to an 1817 biography of Henry by William Wirt, who wrote
that he had confirmed the quote with former President Thomas
Jefferson.
(AP, 5/29/08)

1790 May 29, Rhode Island
became the last of the 13 original colonies to ratify the United
States Constitution. They held out for an amendment securing
religious freedom. The state was largely founded by Baptists fleeing
persecution in Massachusetts.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A19)(AP, 5/29/97)(HN, 5/29/98)

1848 May 29, Wisconsin became
the 30th state of the union.
(AP, 5/29/97)(HN, 5/29/98)
1848 May 29, The Californian
newspaper complained that everybody in the state was under the spell
of gold fever and announced suspension of publication because the
staff was heading out to participate. The Californian and the
California Star were based in SF.
(SFEC, 1/11/98, DB p.40)(SFEC, 6/21/98, Z1
p.1)(PI, 8/8/98, p.5)
1848 May 29, Battle at
Curtazone: Austrians beat Sardinia-Piemonte.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1849 May 29, A patent for
lifting vessels was granted to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln said: "You
can fool some of the people all of the time, & some of the
people some of time, but you can't fool all of the people all of
time"
(HN, 5/29/98)(SC, 5/29/02)

1861 May 29, Dorothea Dix
offered to help set up hospitals for Union Army.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1862 May 29, Confederate
General P.T. Beauregard retreated to Tupelo, Mississippi. He had
taken command of the Trans-Mississippi area after the death of
General Albert Sidney Johnson.
(HN, 5/29/99)
1862 May 29, Franciszek
Wincenty Mirecki (71), composer, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1865 May 29, Amnesty for the
Confederates was granted.
(HFA, '96, p.30)

1866 May 29, US Gen'l. Winfield
Scott (79) died at West Point, New York. Union General Winfield
Scott was the originator of the military strategy known as the
"Anaconda Plan." Scott's plan for defeating the Confederacy featured
a naval blockade of the South designed to slowly "strangle" the
fledgling country. The Union did impose such a blockade, but by 1861
Scott was considered too old to lead the federal armies and he
retired that November. Although a Virginian born on June 13, 1786,
Scott-popularly called "Old Fuss and Feathers"-remained loyal to the
Union and its army he commanded when war broke out.
(HNQ,
2/19/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winfield_Scott)

1874 May 29, G.K. Chesterton
(d.1936), English poet-essayist, was born. "Every man is dangerous
who only cares for one thing."
(AP, 8/4/99)(HN, 5/29/01)
1874 May 29, The present
constitution of Switzerland took effect.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1911 May 29, The first running
of the Indianapolis 500. Ray Harroun won at 74.59 mph (120 kph).
[see May 30]
(HN, 5/29/98)(SC, 5/29/02)
1911 May 29, In SF the
amusement park known as "The Chutes," located on Fillmore Street,
burned down. The fire originated in the Chutes restaurant and
destroyed 13 stores in the Chutes building. All the animals in the
“Happy Family House" as well as the donkeys and ponies in the Chutes
stable were killed. There would not be another amusement park in San
Francisco for over 20 years, until Chutes-at-the-Beach opened at
Ocean Beach in the mid-1920s, changing its name to
Playland-at-the-Beach by 1928 and lasting until 1972. The
shoot-the-chutes attraction was torn down in January 1950.
(AJSF, Vol. 14. No. 2, Winter, 2003)(SSFC,
5/29/11, DB p.46)
1911 May 29, William Schwenck
Gilbert (74), writer (Gilbert & Sullivan), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1912 May 29, John Hanlo, Dutch
poet (Go to the Mosque), was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1912 May 29, Curtis Publishing
fired 15 young women for dancing the "Turkey Trot" during their
lunch break.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1913 May 29, Iris Adrian,
actress (Blue Hawaii, Bluebeard), was born in Los Angeles, CA.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1913 May 29, The premier of the
ballet Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) by Igor Stravinsky
and Vaslav Nijinsky in Paris caused rioting in the theater. The
orchestra was led by Pierre Monteux and décor was by Nikolai
Roerich.
(SFEC, 8/10/97, p.B9)(HN, 5/29/01)(WSJ, 12/8/04,
p.D12)

1914 May 29, The Canadian ship
Empress of Ireland sank while enroute to Quebec City to Liverpool
after colliding with the Norwegian coal freighter Storstad. 1,012
(1,024) of the 1,500 passengers and crew were killed. The site of
the tragedy was proclaimed a protected historic and archeological
site by Quebec in 1999.
(SFC, 4/23/99, p.D3)(SC, 5/29/02)

1916 May 29, Official flag of
president of United States was adopted.
(HN, 5/29/98)
1916 May 29, U.S. forces
invaded the Dominican Republic and stayed until 1924. [see May
5&15, 1916]
(HN, 5/29/98)

1917 May 29, John Fitzgerald
Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States (1961-1963), was
born at 83 Beals St. in Brookline, Mass. He was assassinated in his
first term.
(AP, 5/29/97)(HN, 5/29/99)(SSFC, 9/8/02, p.C12)

1919 May 29, A solar eclipse
occurred that was photographed by two British expeditions, one in
Africa and the other in Sobral, Brazil. Arthur Eddington, British
astronomer, confirmed Einstein’s prediction of the deflection of
light from Principe, a Portuguese island off the Atlantic coast of
Africa. In 1980 Harry Colling and Trevor Pinch published "The
Golem," an account of the expedition. The play “Rose Tattoo" by
Tennessee (Thomas Lanier) Williams was originally titled “The
Eclipse of May 29, 1919."
(SFC, 10/12/96,
p.E3)(www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/~suchii/Edd.on1919.html)
1919 May 29, Charles P. Strite
of Minnesota filed for a patent for a pop-up toaster. His US patent:
1,394,450 was issued October 18, 1921.
(www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/toaster.htm)

1932 May 29, Paul Erlich,
environmental scientist, was born.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1932 May 29, World War I
veterans began arriving in Washington to demand cash bonuses they
weren’t scheduled to receive for another 13 years. 17,000 veterans
marched on Washington demanding cash for their bonus certificates.
They were led by Walter Waters, a former sergeant from Portland,
Ore.
(TMC, 1994, p.1932)(AP, 5/29/97)(WSJ, 11/7/05,
p.B1)

1940 May 29, Germans captured
Ostend and Ypres in Belgium and Lille in France.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1940 May 29, The German air
force launched massive attacks on the harbor at Dunkirk. A British
destroyer and 6 of the biggest merchant ships in the harbor were
sunk.
(ON, 8/12, p.4)
1940 May 29, Arthur
Seyss-Inquart was installed as Reich Commissioner of Hague,
Netherlands.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1941 May 29, Roy Crewsdon,
rocker (Freddie & The Dreamers), was born in Manchester.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1942 May 29, Kevin Conway,
actor (Flash Point, Cage of Angels), was born in NYC.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1942 May 29, The movie "Yankee
Doodle Dandy," starring James Cagney, premiered at a war-bonds
benefit in New York.
(AP, 5/29/99)
1942 May 29, Bing Crosby, the
Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded
Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" in Los Angeles for Decca Records.
(AP, 5/29/98)
1942 May 29, Actor John
Barrymore died in Hollywood at age 60.
(HN, 5/29/00)(AP, 5/29/01)
1942 May 29, The German Army
completed its encirclement of the Kharkov region of the Soviet
Union. The Red Army had lost over 250,000 men including many
prisoners.
(HN, 5/29/99)

1943 May 29, Norman Rockwell’s
portrait of "Rosie the Riveter" appeared on the cover of "The
Saturday Evening Post." Rockwell’s model was Mary Doyle Keefe (19)
of Arlington, Vermont (d.2015). In 2002 the painting sold at auction
for $4,959,500.
(AP, 5/29/97)(SFC, 4/24/15, p.D4)
1943 May 29, Churchill,
Marshall and Eisenhower met in the Confederacy of Algiers.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1943 May 29, Meat and cheese
began to be rationed in US.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1943 May 29, Hermann Hans
Wetzler (72), composer, died.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1945 May 29, US 1st Marine
division conquered Shuri-castle in Okinawa.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1945 May 29, Dutch police
arrested and imprisoned Hans van Meegeren (1889-1947) for
collaborating with the enemy. His name had been traced to a sale
made during the second world war of what was then believed to be an
authentic Vermeer to Nazi Field-Marshal Hermann Goering. On July 12,
in order to prove his innocence, Meegeren revealed that he had
forged the painting.
(WSJ, 10/14/06, p.P10)(ON, 12/07, p.12)

1946 May 29, Robin Johnson,
actress (Times Square), was born in Brooklyn, NY.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1946 May 29, KVP won the
Provincial National elections in Netherlands.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1953 May 29, Danny Elfman,
composer (Simpson Show Theme), was born in Los Angeles, CA.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1953 May 29, Rick Henderson,
singer (Mason Dixon-Karen Comes Around), was born in Beaumont, TX.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1953 May 29, Mount Everest was
conquered as Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tensing Norgay, a
Sherpa of Nepal, became the first climbers to reach the summit. The
expedition was led by John Hunt (d.1998 at 88). Tenzing Norgay later
authored the autobiography “Man of Everest."
(AP, 5/29/97)(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.T5)(HN,
5/29/98)(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.A23)(WSJ, 6/4/01, p.A20)

1954 May 29, Pope Pius XII,
born as Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Pacelli (1876-1958), canonized Pope
Pius X, born as Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto (1835-1914). It was the
first canonization of a Pope since 1712.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_canonized_by_Pope_Pius_XII)

1969 May 29, Britain's
Trans-Arctic expedition made the 1st crossing of Arctic Sea ice. Roy
Koerner (1932-2008), more commonly known as Fritz, was one of the
four members of Sir Wally Herbert’s British Transarctic Expedition
which, on April 6, 1969, stood at the North Pole.
(www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1929131.ece)

1970 May 29, John Gunther
(b.1901), American journalist and author, died.
(www.hwwilson.com/Print/14gunther.html)
1970 May 29, Eva Hesse, artist
(34), died in NYC. She is one of 3 artists covered by Anne Middleton
Wagner in “Three Artists (Three Women): Modernism in the Art of
Hesse, Krasner and O’Keefe."
(HFA, '96, p.42)(SFC, 5/12/96, p.T-7)(SSFC,
2/3/02, p.D3)
1970 May 29, In Sri Lanka
Sirimavo Bandaranaike began serving as the country’s 9th prime
minister for a 2nd term and continued to 1977. His first term as the
7th PM of Ceylon was from 1960-1965.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirimavo_Bandaranaike)

1971 May 29, Max Trapp
(b.1887), German composer, died in Berlin (other sources say he died
May 31).
(www.musicorb.com/search.php?day=All&month=All&year=1971&e=1&b=1&d=1&start=0)

1973 May 29, Tom Bradley was
elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, defeating incumbent
Sam Yorty.
(AP, 5/29/97)
1973 May 29, Columbia Records
fired president Clive Davis for misappropriating $100,000 in funds.
Davis went on to start Arista records.
(http://tinyurl.com/5959o4)
1973 May 29, Eric Applewhite
(b.1896), entertainer, died in Miami. He portrayed the inspector in
the film "Dial M for Murder.
(http://tinyurl.com/5phzym)(http://tinyurl.com/5q59jo)

1974 May 29, President Nixon
agreed to turn over 1,200 pages of edited Watergate transcripts.
(HN, 5/29/98)
1974 May 29, Northern Ireland
was brought under direct rule from Westminster.
(www.uhb.fr/langues/cei/nicons74.htm)

1977 May 29, Danny Gerard, TV
and film actor, was born in Mount Vernon, NY.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0313944/)
1977 May 29, Janet Guthrie
(b.1938) became the 1st woman to drive in the Indianapolis 500. Her
autobiography, "Janet Guthrie: A Life at Full Throttle," was
published in 2005.
(www.janetguthrie.com/biofr.htm)(www.nascar.com/2002/kyn/women/02/02/Guthrie/)
1977 May 29, The NBC 24 hour
News & Information Service ended on radio.
(http://pdxradio.net/feedback/messages/995/2265.html?1096520101)
1977 May 29, USSR performed a
nuclear test at Eastern Kazakhstan, Semipalitinsk, USSR.
(www.iss.niiit.ru/ksenia/catal_nt/3_8.htm)
1977 May 29, Goddard Lieberson
(b.1911), composer and president of Columbia Records (1956-1971),
died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Lieberson)

1978 May 29, The US Postal
Service issued the first alphabet stamp, the A stamp, when the
first-class rate went from 13 to 15 cents, after being 13¢ for 3
years. The series ended with the H stamp in 1999 with rates up to 33
cents.
(SFC, 4/20/00,
p.A7)(http://alphabetilately.com/G.html)(www.akdart.com/postrate.html)
1978 May 29, The USSR performed
a nuclear test at Semipalatinsk in Eastern Kazakhstan.
(www.iss.niiit.ru/ksenia/catal_nt/3_8.htm)

1979 May 29, US District Judge
John Wood (b.1916) was assassinated in San Antonio as he was about
to preside in a drug conspiracy trial against Jimmy Chagra. Joe
Chagra (1946-1996), Jimmy’s brother, conspired in the killing and
served as a prosecution witness against Charles V. Harrelson. Joe
served 6 1/2 of 10 years. Charles Harrelson (d.2007) was convicted
of the murder. Prosecutors said a drug dealer facing trial had hired
Harrelson to kill the judge, who was known for giving maximum
sentences. In 1985 Harrelson’s son Woody began an acting career with
a role in “Cheers."
(SFC, 12/11/96,
p.A24)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Wood,_Jr.)(SFC, 3/21/07,
p.B7)
1979 May 29, Mary Pickford
(b.1892), silent film star, died a wealthy recluse. Her life is
documented in the 1997 book: "Pickford: The Woman Who Made
Hollywood" by Eileen Whitfield. She was married for 42 years to
Buddy Rogers (d.1999).
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pickford/timeline/timeline2.html)(SFC,
4/22/99, p.D2)
1979 May 29, Bishop Abel
Muzorewa was sworn in as the first black PM of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia -
the name given to the country in the brief period before full
independence.
(www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/site/this_day_in_history/this_day_May_29.php)

1980 May 29, In NYC "Billy
Bishop Goes to War" opened at the Morosco Theater for 12
performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=3957)
1980 May 29, J. Turners 1836
painting "Juliet & Her Nurse" sold for $6,400,000 in NYC.
(www.abebooks.fr/search/sortby/3/kn/+A+Picture+history+british+painting)
1980 May 29, Larry Bird beat
out Magic Johnson for NBA rookie of year.
(http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/nba/1998/bird/timeline/index.html)
1980 May 29, In Fort Wayne,
Indiana, there was an attempted assassination of Vernon Jordan Jr.,
National Urban League president. in 1996 an acquitted sniper told a
newspaper that he did shoot and wound Vernon Jordan, then president
of the Urban League, outside an Indiana hotel in 1980.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Jordan,_Jr.)(WSJ, 4/9/96,
p.A-1)(WSJ, 11/21/01, p.A12)

1982 May 29, Romy Schneider
(b.1938), Austrian-born actress, died in Paris of cardiac arrest.
Her many films included “The Cardinal" (1963).
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0002769/)

1985 May 29, At Heysel Stadium
rioting erupted between British and Italian spectators at the
European Cup soccer final in Brussels, Belgium. 39 people were
killed when rioting broke out and a wall separating British and
Italian soccer fans collapsed. This led to a 5-year ban on English
clubs playing on the Continent.
(SFEC, 6/11/00, p.A28)(AP, 5/29/08)
1985 May 29, Madge West
(b.1892) American TV actress (Grandma-McLean Stevenson Show), died.
(http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0922212/)

1987 May 29, A jury in Los
Angeles found "Twilight Zone" movie director John Landis and four
associates innocent of involuntary manslaughter in the movie-set
deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two children.
(AP, 5/29/97)

1988 May 29, President Reagan
began his first visit to the Soviet Union as he arrived in Moscow
for a superpower summit with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
(AP, 5/29/98)
1988 May 29, Pakistan Pres. Zia
ul-Haq fired government and disbanded the parliament.
(SC, 5/29/02)

1989 May 29, The first
Weedstock Festival, a pro-marijuana event, was held on Memorial Day
in Wisconsin. Steve Wessing worked the event as a stage manager.
(SFC, 5/27/97,
p.A12)(www.facebook.com/groups/460746184020328/)
1989 May 29, John Cipollina
(45), lead guitarist with the Quicksilver Messenger Service rock
group, died in Marin, Ca. of complications from respiratory
problems.
(SSFC, 5/25/14, DB p.42)
1989 May 29, Student protesters
in Tiananmen Square China constructed a replica of the Statue of
Liberty.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1989 May 29, Bowing to public
demand, the Supreme Soviet allowed Boris N. Yeltsin to take a seat
in the standing legislature.
(AP, 5/29/99)

1990 May 29, Dow Jones average
hits a record 2,870.49.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1990 May 29, Boris N. Yeltsin
was elected president of the Russian republic in the third round of
balloting by the Russian parliament. This gave him a base from which
to attack Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.
(AP, 5/29/97)(HN, 5/29/99)
1990 May 29, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev visited Canada en route to his Washington
summit with President Bush.
(AP, 5/29/00)
1990 May 29, Northern Peru was
struck by an earthquake that claimed as many as 200 lives.
(www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/OCHA-64C3R8?OpenDocument)

1991 May 29, "Les Miserables"
opened at ACTEA Theatre in Auckland, New Zealand.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1991 May 29, President Bush,
addressing the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado,
unveiled a plan to curb “unnecessary and destabilizing weapons" in
the Middle East.
(AP, 5/29/01)
1991 May 29, Coral Browne (77)
Australian actress, (Dreamchild, Ruling Class), died of cancer.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0114982/)

1992 May 29, Undeclared
presidential candidate Ross Perot held a rally in Orlando, Fla.,
that was carried by two-way television satellite to five other
states.
(AP, 5/29/97)
1992 May 29, Bill Beyers (37),
actor (Capitol), died of AIDS.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0079964/)
1992 May 29, Peter John "Ollie"
Halsall (43), English born guitarist, died of a heart attack in
Spain.
(www.philbrodieband.com/muso_ollie_halsall.htm)
1992 May 29, Pippa Steele (44),
German born actress (Vampire Lovers), died of cancer in London.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0824448/)

1993 May 29, President Clinton
tapped Republican David Gergen to assume responsibility for White
House communications and press operations.
(AP, 5/29/98)
1993 May 29, In Solingen,
Germany, five Turks, including three young girls, were killed in a
firebombing blamed on right-wing extremists. Five Turks died in an
arson attack that was blamed on neo-Nazis and led to large
demonstrations. The events were documented in essays by Jane Kramer
collected in 1996 in “The Politics of Memory: Looking for Germany in
the New Germany."
(SFEC, 10/20/96, BR, p.5)(AP, 5/29/98)

1994 May 29, "Joseph & the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" closed at Minskoff Theater in NYC
after 223 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=4581)
1994 May 29, "Picnic" closed at
Criterion Theater in NYC after 45 performances.
(www.ibdb.com/production.asp?ID=4603)
1994 May 29, Khallid Abdul
Muhammad, a former spokesman for the Nation of Islam, was shot and
wounded after delivering a speech at the University of California,
Riverside; a defrocked Nation of Islam minister, James Edward Bess,
was charged. Bess was later convicted of attempted murder and
assault and sentenced to life in prison.
(AP, 5/29/04)
1994 May 29, A great comet
iceball was seen above the North Sea.
(www.imo.net/bib/auth_n.html)
1994 May 29, Hungary's
Socialist Party won parliamentary election. Socialist Prime Minister
Gyula Horn was elected to lead the Socialist-Free Democrat
coalition. The coalition slashed the communist welfare state and
solidified free-market democracy.
(SFC, 5/25/98, p.A10)(SC, 5/29/02)
1994 May 29, Jose Bohr
(b.1901), actor (El Traidor, Sueno de Amor), died.
(http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/filmography.html?p_id=7064&mod=bio)
1994 May 29, Joseph Janni
(b.1916), Italian-born producer, died in London, UK.
(www.a2zpeople.com/j/jo/joseph+janni.asp)
1994 May 29, Oliver "Bops
Junior" Jackson (b.1933), drummer, died.
(http://nfo.net/calendar/apr28.htm)
1994 May 29, Harry Levin
(b.1912), literary Scholar, died.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Levin)
1994 May 29, Erich Honecker
(81), former East German leader (1971-89), died of liver cancer in
Chile.
(AP, 5/29/99) (SFC, 8/26/97, p.A17)

1995 May 29, The last three
bodies entombed in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma
City were recovered.
(AP, 5/29/00)
1995 May 29, Margaret Chase
Smith (97), the first woman to serve in both the House and the
Senate (R-ME), died in Skowhegan, Maine.
(AP, 5/29/00)(SC, 5/29/02)

1996 May 29, The United Farm
Workers signed a contract with a major lettuce producer. A minimum
of 6.62/hr will be paid rising to 7.23/hr in 5 years.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.C1)
1996 May 29, The Endeavor space
shuttle landed after a 10-day mission. It went be overhauled for a
space-station assembly mission in 1997.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A5)
1996 May 29, Jeremy Sinden
(45), actor (Chariots of Fire, Ascendancy, Harem), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1996 May 29, A 15-year-old
Honduran girl spoke of sweatshop conditions under South Korean
owners in the production of clothing for the Kathie Lee Gifford line
for Wal-Mart. The National Labor Committee accused marketers such as
Eddie Bauer, J. Crew, and K-Mart of selling clothes made by underage
Honduran workers.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A5)
1996 May 29, Gulbuddin
Hekmatyar became the new PM of Afghanistan.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A10)
1996 May 29, Chechen rebel
commander Aslan Maskhadov sent a radio message to his forces to
refrain from attacks on Russian soldiers. A power sharing plan
defines Chechnya as a sovereign state within the Russian Federation,
giving it control over its finances and resources.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A8)
1996 May 29, Israelis voted for
the first time to choose a prime minister directly. The Nat’l.
Religious Party went from 6 to 10 seats in parliament, the Shas, a
strictly Orthodox party of Sephardic Jews, also went from 6 to 10
seats. The United Torah Judaism, an ardently Orthodox party of
Ashkenazic Jews retained its 4 seats. Benjamin Netanyahu, Likud
party leader, won the Prime Ministership over Prime Minister Shimon
Peres in a very close election.
(WSJ, 5/24/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A8)(AP,
5/29/01)
1996 May 29, Hundreds of Tutsis
crossed into Rwanda fleeing the fighting in Zaire. Thousands of
displaced Tutsis are behind them in the Masisi and Rutshuru regions
of northeastern Zaire.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A9)
1996 May 29, In Papua New
Guinea the 500 Bahinemo people and the several hundred Bitara people
were faced with the decision over whether to allow logging in their
2,300 sq. mls of primeval woodland.
(SFC, 5/29/96, p.A8)
1996 May 29, The army chief of
Sri Lanka offered a general amnesty to more than 20,000 deserters
and announced plans to recruit another 10,000 soldiers. He wants to
bolster the army of 100,000 to finish the 12-year war with Tamil
separatists.
(WSJ, 5/30/96, p.A1)

1997 May 29, In closing
arguments, Timothy McVeigh's attorney urged jurors not to be swayed
by sympathy for the Oklahoma City bombing victims, after a
prosecutor delivered a wrenching summation that portrayed McVeigh as
a terrorist who killed children in the warped belief he was a
patriot.
(AP, 5/29/98)
1997 May 29, George Fenneman
(77), announcer (You Bet Your Life), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1997 May 29, In Algeria armed
men attacked a home in Djebabra and slit the throats of 6 men and 2
women.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.A16)
1997 May 29, In Angola troops
overran the northern part of the country held by the former Unita
movement.
(WSJ, 5/30/97, p.A1)
1997 May 29, In China
authorities executed 8 Muslim separatists in Xinjiang.
(SFC, 5/30/97, p.16)
1997 May 29, In Peru the
congressional majority of Pres. Fujimori fired 3 constitutional
court judges who had ruled against his bid for a 3rd consecutive
term.
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.D1)
1997 May 29, Spanish scientists
announced a new human species in 780,000 year old fossil.
(www.anomalous-images.com/news/news049.html)

1998 May 29, It was reported
that 54% of adult Americans are overweight and that 22% are obese.
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.A1)
1998 May 29, It was reported
that a salmonella strain impervious to 5 antibiotics was rampant in
Britain. Chickens were reported sold in Minnesota that were
contaminated with campylobacter resistant to a powerful antibiotic.
The high use of antibiotics by farmers was adding to the problem of
an increasing number of drug-resistant germs.
(SFC, 5/29/98, p.A8)
1998 May 29, In Colorado three
men shot and killed police officer Dale Claxton of Cortez when he
stopped them in a suspected stolen water truck.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A6)
1998 May 29, Barry Goldwater
(b.1909), former Senator from Arizona, died in Paradise Valley,
Ariz. In 2008 John W. Dean and Barry Goldwater Jr. authored “Pure
Goldwater."
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A1)(AP, 5/29/99)(WSJ, 5/2/08,
p.A13)
1998 May 29, Two activists were
killed by the Nigerian Mobile Police on Chevron’s Parabe oil
production platform. The police were flown in on Chevron helicopters
following 4 days of protests. In 2009 a federal judge upheld a San
Francisco jury’s verdict that cleared Chevron of wrongdoing in the
shootings.
(SFC, 11/19/98, p.A8,9)(SFC, 3/5/09, p.C1)
1998 May 29, In Serbia Pres.
Milosevic imposed large licensing fees on radio and TV stations and
denied permits to dozens of opposition broadcasters. Control of the
autonomous state universities was also undertaken.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A3)
1998 May 29, In Kosovo a Serb
policeman was killed and another wounded in the Decani region. A
3-day Serb offensive began that left over 60 ethnic Albanians dead
in Vranoc and other villages in the area.
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A11)(SFC, 7/16/98, p.A10)
1998 May 29, In Russia Pres.
Yeltsin ordered a crackdown on tax delinquents. He fired Alexander
Pochinok, head of the tax service, and replaced him with former
finance minister Boris Fyodorov (40).
(SFC, 5/30/98, p.A10)
1998 May 29, From Sierra Leone
it was reported that defeated rebels were conducting a campaign of
terror in the countryside and that hundreds have been killed since
the rebels were driven from the cities in March.
(WSJ, 5/29/98, p.A1)

1999 May 29, It was reported
that the US Defense Dept. had ordered 9,000 Purple Hearts from Graco
Industries near Houston to "replenish its supply."
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.A12)
1999 May 29, The space shuttle
“Discovery" completed the first-ever docking with the international
space station.
(AP, 5/29/00)
1999 May 29, In Austria a
multiple vehicle collision set off a 15-hour fire in the Tauern
Tunnel and at least 12 people were killed.
(SFC, 6/3/99, p.C4)
1999 May 29, In Nigeria Pres.
Olusegun Obasanjo became the first civilian president in 15 years,
ending a string of military regimes. He suspended contracts awarded
by his predecessor. In the oil region 56 people were killed in
ethnic unrest.
(WSJ, 5/6/99, p.A1)(SFEC, 5/30/99, p.A17)(WSJ,
6/1/99, p.A1)(AP, 5/29/00)
1999 May 29, In Slovakia Rudolf
Schuster was elected president in a runoff election against Vladimir
Meciar, the authoritarian former prime minister.
(WSJ, 6/1/99, p.A1)

2000 May 29, President Clinton
left Washington for a weeklong European tour.
(AP, 5/29/01)
2000 May 29, The US State Dept.
called the vote in Peru invalid.
(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A12)
2000 May 29, The space shuttle
Atlantis landed at Cape Canaveral in the early morning dark after a
successful overhaul of the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A3)
2000 May 29, In Eritrea
Ethiopian planes launched air raids on a military airstrip near
Asmara as their foreign ministers prepared for talks in Algeria.
(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A1)
2000 May 29, In Fiji Commodore
Frank Bainimarama seized power to restore order following the coup.
Pres. Mara stepped down from power and retired to Lau.
(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A12)(Econ, 4/24/04, p.88)
2000 May 29, In Indonesia
former pres. Suharto was put under house arrest pending a trial for
corruption and abuse of power. However, Suharto’s trial on
corruption charges was abandoned because of health concerns. In
North Moluku at least 44 people were killed in an armed raid on a
mostly Christian village on Halmahera Island. The attackers were
believed to be members of the Lasker Jihad from a neighboring
island.
(SFC, 5/30/00, p.A12)(SFC, 5/31/00, p.A11)(AP,
5/29/01)
2000 May 29, North Korean
leader Kim Jong il began a 3-day to China and met with Pres. Jiang
Zemin and the ruling Communist Party’s inner circle. He received
promises of free food and other material assistance. Kim Jong Il had
not visited China since 1983.
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.A16)(Econ, 7/2/11, p.36)
2000 May 29, In Zimbabwe
Thadeus Rukuni, a candidate for the Movement for Democratic Change,
was beaten to death in Bikita.
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.A18)

2001 May 29, Pres. Bush met
with Gov. Davis in Los Angeles. Bush ruled out federal price
controls and Davis said he would sue to impose controls.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A1)(AP, 5/29/02)
2001 May 29, The Supreme Court
ruled that disabled golfer Casey Martin could use a cart to ride in
tournaments.
(AP, 5/29/02)
2001 May 29, Four followers of
Osama bin Laden were convicted in New York of a global conspiracy to
murder Americans, including the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies
in Africa that killed 224 people.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A1)(AP, 5/29/02)
2001 May 29, Intel unveiled its
new 64-bit processor, the Itanium, previously known under the code
name Merced. A 2nd generation of the chip, code-named McKinley, was
planned for 2002. The project was a joint venture with HP.
(WSJ, 5/29/01, p.A1)(Econ, 2/28/04, p.63)
2001 May 29, The US National
Marine Fisheries Service declared the California coast white abalone
an endangered species.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A3)
2001 May 29, In Israel and the
West Bank 3 Palestinians and 3 Israelis were killed.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A10)(WSJ, 5/30/01, p.A1)
2001 May 29, In Macedonia key
leaders agreed to set aside a dispute over a joint declaration
signed by ethnic Albanian politicians and a guerrilla leader that
did not require an immediate stop to fighting.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A10)
2001 May 29, In Mexico City
Jesus Ignacio Carrola Gutierrez, a former director of the judicial
police, was found slain execution-style with his 2 brothers. Carrola
had resigned in 1997 under pressure of alleged links to drug
traffickers and human rights abuses by police under his command.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A12)
2001 May 29, Pakistan accepted
India’s offer for peace talks on Kashmir.
(WSJ, 5/30/01, p.A1)
2001 May 29, The Ukraine
Parliament confirmed Anatoly Kinakh as prime minister.
(SFC, 5/30/01, p.A12)

2002 May 29, Pres. Bush moved
to prevent oil drilling off the Florida coast and in the Everglades.
Payments of $115 and $120 million would be made to buy back drilling
rights. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said it was good public policy.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A3)
2002 May 29, FBI Director
Robert Mueller acknowledged that the bureau did not pursue “red
flags" in the weeks before Sep 11, and suggested for the first time
that investigators might have uncovered the plot if they had been
more diligent about pursuing leads. A reorganization plan for the
bureau was announced with a focus on terrorist attacks.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A1)(AP, 5/29/03)
2002 May 29, The US offered a
reward for as much as $5 million for the capture of Abu Sayyaf
leaders in the Philippines.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A10)
2002 May 29, In Britain PM Tony
Blair appointed Paul Boateng (50), as the nation's 1st black Cabinet
Minister and named him deputy treasury secretary.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A12)
2002 May 29, The EU upgraded
Russia to the status of a full market economy.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A8)
2002 May 29, In India 4 bomb
blasts in and around Ahmadabad in Gujarat state injured at least 39
people.
(SFC, 5/29/02, p.A16)(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A12)
2002 May 29, In Kashmir
cross-border shelling killed at least 23 people and wounded 17.
(WSJ, 5/30/02, p.A1)
2002 May 29, Libya denied that
it had any relationship to the deal made by lawyers to pay $2.7
billion to the families of Pan Am Flight 103 victims. The move was
seen as a ploy and a settlement was expected soon.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A10)
2002 May 29, Oxana Fedorova of
Russia was crowned as the 51st Miss Universe.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A2)(AP, 5/29/07)
2002 May 29, In Zambia Pres.
Levy Mwanawasa declared a national food crises with 4 million people
facing starvation due to drought.
(WSJ, 5/31/02, p.A1)

2003 May 29, President Bush, in
a wide-ranging interview with reporters at the White House, repeated
his defense of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and hinted that relations
with France remained scarred over its opposition to the war.
(AP, 5/29/04)
2003 May 29, AOL Time Warner
and Microsoft announced a settlement in their battle over Internet
browsers, with the software giant paying AOL $750 million.
(AP, 5/29/04)
2003 May 29, Scientists
reported the discovery of a "master gene" in stem cells.
(SFC, 5/30/03, p.A5)
2003 May 29, The BBC, aired a
radio piece by journalist Andrew Gilligan quoting an anonymous
official accusing the government of inflating claims about Iraqi
weapons. David Kelly was later identified as the source and
committed suicide Jul 17.
(AP, 7/23/03)(Econ, 1/31/04, p.54)
2003 May 29, US forces in Iraq
numbered some 200,000. An extended stay was expected.
(SFC, 5/29/03, p.A12)
2003 May 29, Tropical Storm
Linfa moved northeast of the Philippines toward Japan on Thursday
after leaving at least 25 people dead and more than 8,000 displaced
following five days of heavy rains and flooding.
(AP, 5/29/03)

2004 May 29, A new WW II
memorial was dedicated on the National Mall in Washington DC.
(SFC, 5/28/04, p.A1)
2004 May 29, Archibald Cox
(92), fired by Pres. Nixon for his efforts in the Watergate
investigation, died in Maine.
(AP, 5/30/04)
2004 May 29, Samuel Dash (79),
chief Senate counsel during the Watergate hearings, died in
Washington DC.
(SSFC, 5/30/04, p.B7)
2004 May 29, In southern
Afghanistan 4 members of the American special forces were killed in
action in Zabul province, a stronghold of Taliban militants.
(AP, 5/29/04)
2004 May 29, Taliban guerrillas
riding in a fleet of vehicles shot up a government office in
southern Afghanistan, killing four Afghan soldiers.
(AP, 5/30/04)
2004 May 29, In Brazil Inmates
rioted at the Benfica detention center in a northern Rio district,
seizing guns and taking guards hostage after 14 inmates broke out in
a mass escape.
(AP, 5/29/04)
2004 May 29, Unidentified
gunmen shot and killed a U.N. military observer in eastern Congo and
a second was reported missing. About 10,800 U.N. troops are deployed
in Congo, monitoring the peace deal and helping the government
regain control of the country. Elections are scheduled for June
2005.
(AP, 5/29/04)
2004 May 29, In Iran the Gov.
Masoud Emami of Qazvin province was killed along with 7 others when
their helicopter crashed while surveying earthquake damage.
(SSFC, 5/30/04, p.A14)
2004 May 29, A Palestinian
gunman killed an Israeli officer after opening fire on Israeli
troops conducting a routine raid in the West Bank Balata refugee
camp. An Israeli man was stabbed in the back by a Palestinian in
Jerusalem's Old City.
(AP, 5/29/04)
2004 May 29, In Saudi Arabia
gunmen shot down security guards and entered 2 office complexes in
Khobar searching for and murdering anyone looking western.
(Econ, 6/5/04, p.41)

2005 May 29, Dan Wheldon won
the Indianapolis 500 as Danica Patrick's electrifying run fell
short. She finished fourth.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2005 May 29, In Bellefontaine,
Ohio, Scott Moody (18) who was about to graduate from high school is
believed to have fatally shot his grandparents, mother and two
family friends before killing himself.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 29, George Rochberg
(86), composer, died. He was America’s 1st evangelist for serialism,
a way of composing invented by Arnold Schonberg in the 1920s.
(WSJ, 6/16/05, p.D8)
2005 May 29, In southern
Afghanistan's Kandahar province gunmen shot and killed Mullah Abdul
Fayaz, the top Muslim leader.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 29, In Brazil almost 2
million gay men, lesbians, transvestites and their supporters, many
in lavish Carnival costumes and waving rainbow-colored flags,
paraded in Sao Paulo to celebrate gay pride and call for the
legalization of civil unions between homosexuals.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 29, French voters
rejected the EU's first constitution, dealing a potentially fatal
blow to the charter. In 2007 it was repackaged as the Lisbon treaty.
(AP, 5/30/05)(Econ, 10/10/09, p.28)
2005 May 29, In Iraq suicide
bombings and ambushes killed at least 30 people, including a British
soldier. Iraqi forces swept through Baghdad, erecting checkpoints
and searching vehicles as they launched the largest offensive of its
kind since Saddam Hussein's ouster.
(AP, 5/29/05)(SFC, 5/30/05, p.A1)
2005 May 29, In Iraq Maj. Gen.
Ahmed al-Barazanchi, the director of internal affairs of Kirkuk
province and a former police chief, was shot several times. He died
the next day.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 29, The body of Raja
Nawaf Farhan al-Mahalawi, governor of Anbar province, was found
killed. Insurgents had abducted him May 10.
(AP, 5/31/05)
2005 May 29, Israel's Cabinet
approved the release of 400 Palestinian prisoners.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 29, Thousands of South
Korean students rallying against the US military's five-decade
presence clashed with police after trying to enter the American
base, and at least 12 people were injured and more than 20 were
arrested.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 29, Lebanon held
parliamentary elections. Candidates loyal to the son of assassinated
politician Rafik Hariri swept the 1st stage of the first Lebanese
election largely free of Syrian domination, claiming all 19
parliamentary seats in Beirut.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 29, In southwestern
Nepal Maoist rebels shot dead a policewoman and her four-year-old
son.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 29, The World
Association of Newspapers' (WAN), meeting in Seoul, awarded veteran
Sudanese journalist Mahgoub Mohamed Salih its 2005 press freedom
award.
(AP, 5/30/05)
2005 May 29, In Taipei
thousands of men in black gangster garb took part in the funeral
procession of a reputed Taiwan mob godfather, nicknamed "Mosquito"
and "The Great Arbitrator." Hsu Hai-ching died this month at 93
after a long illness.
(AP, 5/29/05)
2005 May 29, In Venezuela tens
of thousands of marched in Caracas demanding the US extradite a
Cuban militant wanted for his alleged role in the 1976 bombing of a
Cuban airliner.
(AP, 5/29/05)

2006 May 29, Pres. Bush in a
Memorial Day message said the US must continue the war on terror in
the names of those who have given their lives in the cause. He also
signed into a law a bill limiting protests at military funerals.
(WSJ, 5/30/06, p.A1)
2006 May 29, The U.S. military
said the number of Guantanamo Bay detainees staging a hunger strike
has grown from three to 75.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In Washington DC
Jordan's King Abdullah II met with President Bush and urged him to
pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In Afghanistan 5
Canadian soldiers were hurt and up to six militants killed in a
gunbattle west of Kandahar, while US-led coalition aircraft bombed
Taliban militants meeting in remote Helmand province, reportedly
killing dozens.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, A deadly traffic
accident involving US troops left 5 people dead and sparked the
worst rioting in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taliban
regime, with hundreds of protesters looting shops and shouting
"Death to America!" Some 25 people were killed and 107 injured in
the riots. The unrest started after three US Humvee vehicles coming
into the city from the outskirts rammed into a rush-hour traffic
jam, hitting several civilian cars. On July 20 the US military said
it was paying $112,000 in compensation to victims of the traffic
accident involving an American cargo truck.
(AP, 5/29/06)(Econ, 7/8/06, p.23)(AP, 7/21/06)
2006 May 29, A Belarus court
sentenced Sergei Lyashkevich, an opposition campaign official, to
five months in prison after convicting him of training and paying
people to riot. Lyashkevich had directed opposition candidate
Alexander Milinkevich's campaign office in Shchuchin.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, Burundi's only
hold-out rebel group began talks with the government in an effort to
end the central African country's 12-year civil war.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In Canada hundreds
of thousands of frustrated commuters were forced to find alternate
ways to work as subway stations across Toronto were shut down and
buses and streetcars halted due to a labor dispute. Toronto transit
workers were ordered back to work, ending a wildcat strike that
stranded some 700,000 commuters and filled the streets of Canada's
biggest city with extra cars, bicycles and pedestrians as commuters
scrambled to get to work.
(AP, 5/29/06)(Reuters, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, China and India
pledged to deepen military exchanges during a visit by Indian
Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee, the latest sign of warming
relations between the neighbors and one-time foes.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, French Agriculture
Minister Dominique Bussereau ruled out changes to the EU's system of
farm subsidies, saying he would prefer that the Doha trade talks
fail instead.
(AFP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD), the US maker of computer chips, said it planned to
invest 2.5 billion dollars (1.96 billion euros) in expanding
capacity at its factory in Dresden, eastern Germany, over the next
three years.
(AFP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, A group of
prominent Indians called for national talks between Maoist rebels
and the government, while also demanding an end to a controversial
anti-rebel campaign in the worst-affected state of Chhattisgarh.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In Indonesia a
boiling mud flow began from a volcano in Sidoarjo, east Java. By
2007 it covered 1.6 square miles destroying 4 villages and 25
factories and forced 16,000 people to leave their homes. The mud
flow was triggered by the drilling operations for gas of Lapindo
Brantas, an energy company whose major shareholder was the
family-owned Bakrie Group. Aburizal Bakrie, head of economics in
Yudhoyono’s cabinet, called it a natural disaster and tried to sell
Lapindo to obscure offshore buyers. The sale was blocked and Bakrie
was moved to the post of coordinating minister of public welfare. In
Feb 2007 engineers began dropping large cement balls into the crater
in an attempt to stem the flow. In 2008 international scientists
said they are almost certain that the mud volcano was caused by
faulty drilling of a gas exploration well.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.A1)(Econ, 12/1/07, p.58)(AP,
6/10/08)
2006 May 29, In Iraq 8 bombs
killed at least 33 people and wounded dozens in the worst wave of
violence to hit Baghdad in days. A car bomb exploded in Baghdad,
killing two British members of a CBS News crew, a US soldier and an
Iraqi interpreter, and seriously injuring CBS correspondent Kimberly
Dozier. The Iraqi government captured Ahmed Hussein Dabash Samir
al-Batawi, a key terror suspect who allegedly confessed to hundreds
of beheadings. Samir al-Batawi was arrested by a terrorist combat
unit in Baghdad.
(AP, 5/29/06)(AP, 5/30/07)
2006 May 29, Israel announced
it would fully participate in a NATO naval exercise for the first
time, bolstering defense ties with the Western military alliance in
the face of arch-foe Iran's nuclear program.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, In southwestern
Nigeria a truck hauling iron rods lost control and crashed into
several roadside buses as passengers were boarding, killing at least
30 people.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 29, In northwestern
Pakistan suspected Islamic militants fired at a car carrying
Meherdil Khan Shamankhel, a pro-government tribal elder, killing him
and wounding two other people in the vehicle.
(AP, 5/30/06)
2006 May 29, In Serbia an
explosion ripped through a chemical plant near Belgrade, killing at
least four people and injuring three. Police sealed off the Prva
Iskra chemical factory, which produces explosives as well as toxic
hydrofluoric acid, used as a component for household detergents.
(AP, 5/29/06)
2006 May 29, Sri Lanka's Tamil
Tiger rebels agreed to more talks to shore up the implementation of
a collapsing ceasefire as the EU moved to ban them as a terrorist
group.
(AFP, 5/29/06)

2007 May 29, President Bush
ordered new US economic sanctions to pressure Sudan's government to
halt the bloodshed in Darfur.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, President Bush's
environmental adviser said the US rejects the EU's all-encompassing
target on reduction of carbon emissions. The US and Australia ruled
out a regional carbon trading scheme before the meeting officially
opened in the northern city of Darwin, saying it was too early to
impose uniform targets on APEC nations. APEC members already account
for 60% of global energy demand and their needs are expected to
almost double by 2030. Fidel Castro lambasted President Bush for
opposing the EU's goal for an agreement on carbon emissions at next
week's Group of Eight summit.
(AFP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, The US officials
confirmed that immigration visa fees would rise by an average of 66%
effective July 30.
(SFC, 5/30/07, p.A3)
2007 May 29, Andrew Speaker
(31), a lawyer from Atlanta with a rare and dangerous form of
tuberculosis, ignored doctors' advice and took two trans-Atlantic
flights, leading to the first US government-ordered quarantine since
1963. Italian officials said they were tracing the movements of
Speaker, who honeymooned in Rome for two days despite being told to
turn himself in to health authorities.
(AP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)(Reuters, 6/1/07)
2007 May 29, Cindy Sheehan, the
soldier's mother who had galvanized an anti-war movement with her
monthlong protest outside President Bush's ranch, announced her
"resignation" as the public face of the movement.
(AP, 5/29/08)
2007 May 29, At Fort Campbell,
Kentucky, two children died in an early morning fire at a soldier's
housing unit on the Army post. In 2008 Army wife Billi Jo Smallwood
(35) was accused of setting her apartment on fire in a botched
attempt to collect on her husband's $400,000 insurance policy when
he survived and her two children died instead.
(www.topix.com/forum/city/louisville-tn/TLELGAU2D0M0I5V1T)(AP,
11/22/08)
2007 May 29, In Hudson Oaks,
Texas, Gilberta Estrada (25) was found hanged by suicide along with
3 of her 4 children. A 9-month-old infant survived her noose.
(SFC, 5/30/07, p.A8)
2007 May 29, Bangladeshi
authorities revived two graft cases against former premier Sheikh
Hasina Wajed. Security forces arrested 4 former government
ministers, 2 mayors and a top businessman as the military-backed
emergency government stepped up an anti-corruption drive.
(AFP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, Brazilian Senate
President Renan Calheiros said that he won't resign over accusations
he accepted payoffs from one of the country's top construction
companies.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, Zheng Xiaoyu,
China's former top drug regulator, was sentenced to death in an
unusually harsh punishment for taking bribes to approve substandard
medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, China said it will
not be tied to targets on cutting carbon emissions as Europe and
Asia failed to agree at a 40-nation meeting on how to fight global
warming.
(AFP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, The roof of a
newly built house in Wulanji, a northern Chinese village in Inner
Mongolia, collapsed during a celebration for its completion, killing
16 people and injuring another 29.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, Egypt's parliament
voted to expel an MP and nephew of late President Anwar Sadat, after
he was declared bankrupt.
(AFP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Ethiopia began
counting its population, a daunting task in a country where asking
personal questions is considered socially taboo.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, European and Asian
foreign ministers meeting in Germany agreed to set a 2009 deadline
to complete negotiations on a new international climate change pact
to limit greenhouse gases.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, In India clashes
between police and thousands of people demanding government aid in
the northern state of Rajasthan left at least 13 people dead.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, In Indonesia a
teenage girl died of bird flu, taking the death toll in the nation
worst hit by the virus to 79.
(AFP, 6/1/07)
2007 May 29, Iran's judiciary
spokesman said US academic Haleh Esfandiari and two other
Iranian-Americans have been "formally charged" with endangering
national security and espionage.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, In Iraq 5 British
men were pulled out of a Finance Ministry office by about 40 heavily
armed men in police uniforms in broad daylight and driven in a
convoy of 19 four-wheel-drive vehicles toward Sadr City. Management
consultant Peter Moore and four of his security guards were seized.
In 2008 a Shiite militia that claimed responsibility for the
kidnapping said a hostage named Jason had committed suicide on May
25. The bodies of Alec MacLachlan (30), Jason Swindlehurst (38), and
Jason Creswell (39) were handed over to British officials in 2009.
Moore was released on Dec 30, 2009. The body of Alan McMenemy was
returned in early 2012. Two car bombers hit neighborhoods on
opposite sides of the Tigris River, killing 40 people and wounding
more than 100 others. 3 German computer consultants were kidnapped
from an Iraqi Finance Ministry office in Baghdad. Gunmen in Samarra
set up fake checkpoints on the outskirts of the city and abducted
more than 40 people, most of them soldiers, police officers and
members of two tribes that had banded together against local
insurgents. Col. Hamid Ibrahim al-Jazaa, a Sunni police chief
praised by US forces for clearing his city of insurgents, was
arrested following an investigation into alleged murder, corruption
and crimes against the Iraqi people. Al-Jazaa, his brother and 14
bodyguards were taken into custody in the city of Hit. One US
soldier died of wounds from a roadside bomb attack northwest of
Baghdad.
(AP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)(AP, 5/31/07)(AP,
7/20/08)(AP, 7/29/09)(AP, 12/30/09)(AFP, 1/20/12)
2007 May 29, In Japan an
executive allegedly involved in a bid-rigging scam that has been
linked to the suicide of the agriculture minister leaped to his
death.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Lebanon’s army
clashed with al-Qaida-linked Islamic fighters in a Palestinian
refugee camp, breaking a weeklong truce.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Libya said it will
sign a 900 million dollar exploration deal with energy giant BP,
which plans to return after a 33 year absence. British PM Tony Blair
arrived in Libya and welcomed improved relations as oil companies
from both countries signed a major deal.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, In Nicaragua US
embassy confirmed that an American woman, Lemon E. Groves (49), had
died of injuries suffered when she was attacked in her home in the
Nicaraguan city of Grenada last week.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Umaru Yar'Adua
(56), a former governor hand-picked by departing President Olusegun
Obasanjo, was sworn in as president in Nigeria’s first transfer of
power from one elected government to another. Gun battles between
rival gangs in Nigeria's southern oil-producing state of Rivers
erupted in violence linked to a change of governor, killing 15
people.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Russia pledged to
write off an additional $500 million of African debt. Russia
test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile that is
capable of carrying multiple independent warheads. President
Vladimir Putin warned that US plans for an anti-missile shield in
Europe would turn the region into a "powder keg."
(Reuters, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/29/07)(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 May 29, In Sri Lanka
troops and police stepped up security in Colombo after two bomb
blasts by suspected Tiger rebels within 24 hours killed 11 people.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Sweden said it
plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020, bettering the
EU's proposal to cut emissions by at least 20%.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, Senior Thai judges
began deliberating on whether to dissolve the kingdom's two main
political parties as thousands of troops were put on alert amid
security fears ahead of the court verdict.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 May 29, State media said
Zimbabwe will put 40,000 more people on life saving anti-retroviral
drugs by the end of the year despite an economic crisis.
(AP, 5/29/07)

2008 May 29, Police in San
Jose, Ca., said some 80 people had $45,000 drained from their bank
accounts after thieves pulled debit card data from an Arco station
at 5755 Camden Ave. A covert card-reading device allowed thieves to
collect debit card and pin data. Similar thefts had also been
reported in Los Altos and southern California.
(SFC, 5/30/08, p.B12)
2008 May 29, Harvey Korman
(1927), comedian, died in LA. He had won four Emmys for his
outrageously funny contributions to "The Carol Burnett Show" and
played a conniving politician to hilarious effect in "Blazing
Saddles."
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 29, In Afghanistan a
suicide car bomber hit a convoy of international soldiers in Kabul,
killing three Afghans caught in the blast. A joint operation by
Afghan and NATO forces in Farah killed 30 Taliban fighters. One
policeman and two Afghan soldiers were also killed.
(AP, 5/29/08)
2008 May 29, Argentina's
government set a ceiling on variable grain export taxes, but farmers
said the change wasn't enough to make them lift a weeklong
suspension of beef and grain exports.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 29, Tomislav Petrovic,
a former Bosnian soldier, shot dead six people and wounded another
in a rampage in a Tuzla before being detained as he fired on a
parked car.
(AFP, 5/29/08)
2008 May 29, In Prince Albert,
Saskatchewan, Canada, Chief Albert Mercredi spoke at the “national
day of action" and denounced the premiers of the 4 western provinces
for allowing mining development to pollute aboriginal air, land and
water.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.50)
2008 May 29, Chile's national
police chief and 10 other people were killed when the aging
Panamanian government helicopter they were riding in crashed into a
three-story building in the heart of Panama City.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 29, In Ethiopia a
flash flood hit Jijiga town late at night and swept away 200 houses,
killing 25 people of whom 19 were children.
(Reuters, 5/31/08)
2008 May 29, In France Pres.
Sarkozy’s government presented a draft bill that would effectively
scrap the 35-hour workweek.
(WSJ, 5/30/08, p.A9)
2008 May 29, Members of one of
India's lower castes blocked major roads, burned car tires, and
threw stones at police in several areas around New Delhi in a
continuation of protests in the country's north and west that has
left 39 people dead. Police said a truck ferrying people to a
wedding has plunged into a river in southern India, killing at least
39 people. An elephant rampaged through a village in northern India,
killing at least 7 people who tried to surround it.
(AP, 5/29/08)
2008 May 29, In Iraq a suicide
bomber blew himself up in a crowd of police recruits in the
northwestern town of Sinjar, killing at least 16 men and wounding 14
others. Iraq's PM al-Maliki, at a UN conference in Sweden, called
for neighboring countries to forgive debts and war reparations that
he said hindered his nation's recovery despite a reduction in
violence. Iraq has at least $67 billion in foreign debt, most
incurred during the rule of Saddam Hussein and owed to Saudi Arabia,
Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
(AP, 5/29/08)
2008 May 29, At a ceremony in
Jerusalem, Israel's President Shimon Peres announced that the hoopoe
is now the ornithological symbol of the country. Ornithologist Amir
Balaban, who runs the Jerusalem Bird Observatory, described the
hoopoe as a beautiful, native bird that is monogamous and takes good
care of its children.
(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 29, In the southern
Philippines 2 people were killed and 21 injured when suspected
terrorists detonated a bomb outside a US aid project office near an
air base.
(AP, 5/29/08)
2008 May 29, South Korea took
the final step to resume full imports of beef from the US, which it
banned in 2003 over fears of mad cow disease.
(WSJ, 5/30/08, p.A9)
2008 May 29, Sri Lanka's
military sank four Tamil Tiger rebel boats off the island's northern
coast after a battle that killed 7 rebels and one soldier. Army
troops captured the stronghold known as Munnagam Base after 3 days
of fighting. The military said 6 civilians were killed in a rebel
artillery attack. A pro-rebel Web site reported that guerrillas
raided a navy camp in Sirutheevu islet, killing 13 sailors and
seizing weapons. Other fighting in the Mannar and Vavuniya regions
in the north killed 4 rebels and wounded 8 soldiers.
(AP, 5/29/08)(AP, 5/30/08)
2008 May 29, Turkish warplanes
attacked several Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq. No
casualties were immediately reported. Air raids destroyed 16 Kurdish
rebel facilities.
(AP, 5/29/08)(AP, 5/31/08)

2009 May 29, President Barack
Obama said the nation for too long has failed to adequately protect
the security of its computer networks. He will name a new cyber czar
to take on the job.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Jay Leno made
hosted his last show at "Tonight," and gave a pre-debut boost to
Conan O'Brien welcoming him as his final guest.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, Phil Spector (69),
former music producer, was sentenced in Los Angeles to 10 years to
life in prison for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A4)
2009 May 29, In California the
new National Ignition Facility was dedicated at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory. It was designed to create conditions like those
found in stars and in the explosions of hydrogen bombs. The project
was over 5 years behind schedule and costs to date reached $4
billion, almost 4 times the original estimate.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A1)(Econ, 5/30/09, p.81)
2009 May 29, In Texas a Houston
jury convicted Philippe Padieu (53) of Houston to 45 years in prison
for knowingly infecting 6 women with the AIDS virus.
(SFC, 5/30/09, p.A4)
2009 May 29, The nonbinding New
York Declaration, an agreement between the signatory flag states
which condemns acts of piracy and armed robbery against vessels and
seafarers, was originally tabled by The Bahamas, the Republic of
Liberia, the Republic of Marshall Islands and the Republic of
Panama, four nations that account for more than half of global
shipping.
(www.unmultimedia.org/tv/unifeed/d/13476.html)
2009 May 29, In Afghanistan
five militants were killed in an operation in the Musa Qala region
of southern Helmand province. Six militants were killed during a
battle with police in the western province of Farah. Two would-be
suicide attackers were shot and killed in Heart. In Kandahar
province a roadside bomb killed four civilians.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, In Argentina Swiss
architect Peter Zumthor (66) received the 2009 Pritzker Architecture
Prize. He compared his creative process to the arc of a love affair.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, Cuba criticized
Microsoft for blocking its Messenger instant messaging service on
the island and in other countries under US sanctions, calling it yet
another example of Washington's "harsh" treatment of Havana.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Indonesian
government marine geologist Yusuf Surachman said that a massive
underwater mountain discovered off the island of Sumatra could be a
volcano with potentially catastrophic power. It was discovered
earlier this month about 330 kilometers (205 miles) west of Bengkulu
city during research to map the seabed's seismic faultlines.
(AFP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, A moderate think
tank led by Iran's former top nuclear negotiator accused President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of distorting facts about the country's nuclear
program to depict himself as a hero and improve his chances in the
upcoming election.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, In Iraq a local
leader of a government-backed Sunni paramilitary group was killed
when a bomb hidden on a motorcycle exploded as he opened his butcher
store on the outskirts of Baqouba. Another bomb exploded inside a
bus station north of Baghdad in the Shiite enclave of Khalis,
killing at least four people and wounding 10. In northern Iraq an
American soldier was killed in a grenade attack in Ninevah province.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, In Kashmir the
bodies of two young women (17 & 22) were found in Shopian town.
The pregnant wife of Shakeel Ahmed Ahangar and his teenage sister
were allegedly raped and murdered by Indian soldiers.
(Reuters, 6/20/09)(Econ, 6/27/09, p.48)
2009 May 29, North Korea warned
it would act in "self-defense" if provoked by the UN Security
Council, which is considering tough sanctions over the communist
country's nuclear test, and followed the threat with the test launch
of another short-range missile.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Puerto Rico fired
nearly 8,000 government workers, the start of a wave of layoffs
aimed at closing a budget deficit as the island struggles through
its third year of recession.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Russian and
American officials formally dedicated a high-tech plant in southern
Siberia, built with the help of $1 billion from the US and designed
to destroy about 2 million chemical weapons shells.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 29, Saudi authorities
beheaded and crucified a man convicted of brutally slaying an
11-year-old boy and his father.
(AP, 5/30/09)
2009 May 29, In Geneva a
65-nation Conference on Disarmament broke a dozen years of deadlock
and opened the way to negotiate a new nuclear arms control treaty.
(AP, 5/29/09)

2010 May 29, The worst oil
spill in US history hit its 40th day with Gulf residents clinging to
the tenuous hope that BP's complicated "top kill" operation will
plug the gushing well.
(Reuters, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In Daly City, Ca.,
a rave at the Cow Palace left 2 people dead due to drug use. The
event drew some 16,500 attendees who paid about $85 each at the
door.
(SFC, 6/16/10, p.A10)
2010 May 29, Dennis Hopper
(b.1936), film star, died in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles.
He brought the counterculture to Hollywood with "Easy Rider" (1969)
and led a career marked by successes, failures and comebacks. He
also had parts in such favorites as "Rebel Without a Cause,"
"Apocalypse Now," "Blue Velvet" and "Hoosiers."
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 29, Taliban insurgents
claimed a victory when they captured an Afghan government outpost in
a remote mountainous region near the Pakistan border. Officials said
up to a dozen Taliban-linked militants, including their commander,
were killed when NATO and Afghan troops backed by air support struck
their sanctuaries in the northern Baghlan mountains.
(AP, 5/29/10)(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 29, The premier of
China, North Korea's main ally, offered condolences to South Korea
for the sinking of a warship blamed on Pyongyang after promising
that Beijing, under pressure to punish the North, would not defend
any country guilty of the attack.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In China 17 miners
were killed by a dynamite explosion at the Shuguang Coal Mine in
Chenzhou city, Hunan province.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 29, The 55th annual
Eurovision song competition was expected to be watched by more than
120 million viewers in 39 European countries as well as in Burma,
Australia and New Zealand. Norway's public broadcaster NRK spent 200
million kroner (25 million euros, 30 million dollars) to host the
show.
(AFP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, Tropical Storm
Agatha made landfall near the border of Guatemala and Mexico
with wind speeds of up to 45 mph (75 kph), then weakened into a
tropical depression. The torrential rains in the first tropical
storm of the 2010 season triggered deadly landslides. The death toll
reached 15 but authorities said the number could rise. In El
Salvador rains delivered by Agatha triggered at least 140 landslides
throughout the country killing two adults and a 10-year-old child.
(AP, 5/30/10)
2010 May 29, In Guatemala a
cavernous and almost perfectly round sinkhole swallowed an entire
intersection in Guatemala City during a tropical storm, spooking
people in the neighborhood but exciting geologists. The hole was 66
feet (20m) across and plunged nearly 100 feet (30m) deep.
(AP, 6/2/10)
2010 May 29, Hong Kong police
confiscated a statue mourning victims of China's 1989 crackdown on
protesters in Tiananmen Square and arrested 13 activists, in what
critics called an escalation in political censorship in the
semiautonomous Chinese territory.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, Indian railway
authorities canceled all night trains in West Bengal state one day
after a passenger express train derailed and was hit by a cargo
train. The government accused Maoist rebels of sabotaging the
tracks.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, Police in Indian
Kashmir fired teargas to disperse thousands of villagers protesting
against what they said was the staged killing of three Muslims by
the security forces.
(AFP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, A fire at an
Iranian oil well at the Naft Shahr border region near the Iraq
border killed three people and injured 10 more.
(Reuters, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, A Kurdish
newspaper said imprisoned Kurdish rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan has
accused Turkey of ignoring his calls to establish dialogue with his
rebels and that he would withdraw from the process, leaving his
rebel command in charge.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In Mexico the body
of a prison warden kidnapped by gunmen earlier in the day was found
dismembered and scattered in several locations in a Morelos state
adjacent to the Mexican capital. Police found an abandoned silver
mine scattered with bodies outside Taxco, Guerrero state. At least
64 bodies were eventually recovered in what appeared to be a dumping
ground for victims of organized crime.
(Reuters, 5/30/10)(AP, 5/30/10)(AP, 6/4/10)(AP,
6/7/10)(SFC, 6/25/10, p.A3)
2010 May 29, Palestinian
security officials and witnesses said Israeli warplanes launched six
overnight raids on the Islamist-run Gaza Strip, adding that nobody
was wounded in the attacks. An Israeli military spokesman said only
that two air raids had taken place, and that they targeted a tunnel
in the south linking Gaza to Israel and a weapons workshop in the
north.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In Russia 2 Gay
Pride parades were held without arrests in Moscow, the first time
the notoriously intolerant Russian authorities have not intervened
since the inaugural attempt to hold the event in the capital in
2006.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In Russia DDT rock
star Yuri Shevchuk engaged PM Putin during a televised meeting to
promote a charity concert for children. Shevchuk called for anti
government protests to be allowed and accused police of serving
“their bosses and their pockets, not the people." Putin said
“People’s rights to express their disapproval should be protected."
(SFC, 6/1/10, p.A6)
2010 May 29, Turkey’s military
said 3 security forces members were killed and two soldiers were
wounded in clashes with Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey.
(Reuters, 5/29/10)

2011 May 29, Sergei Bagapsh
(62), the leader of Abkhazia, a separatist region of Georgia aligned
with Russia, died in a Moscow hospital where he was being treated
for lung cancer. Bagapsh had led Abkhazia since 2005 and was
credited with leading the region to de facto independence.
(AP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 29, In eastern
Afghanistan 3 American troops were killed in a bomb attack.
(AP, 6/1/11)
2011 May 29, Chinese state
media said China will expand a ban on free shopping bags as it tries
to further curb its addiction to plastic in a bid to rid the country
of "white pollution" that clogs waterways, farms and fields.
(AFP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 29, In the Dominican
Republic a new $2.7 million museum, honoring the more than 50,000
people who died under former dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo,
opened a day before the 50th anniversary of his death.
(AP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 29, In Iraq a roadside
bomb planted outside a suburban liquor shop west of Baghdad killed
an Iraqi soldier and a firefighter as security forces tried to
extinguish a blaze from explosions minutes earlier.
(AP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 29, Italians began
2-days of voting to elect mayors in cities and towns across the
country, with Premier Berlusconi hoping to avert defeat in his
electoral stronghold of Milan.
(AP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 29, It was reported
that 259 Libyan women responded on questionnaires that they have
been raped by militiamen loyal to Moammar Khadafy.
(SSFC, 5/29/11, p.A6)
2011 May 29, Moroccan police
used truncheons to break up a new pro-reform demonstration in
Casablanca, leaving around two dozen people wounded.
(AFP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 29, In Nigeria
Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in for a full four-year term as
president and faced the challenge of uniting a country that saw
deadly postelection violence despite what observers called the
fairest vote in over a decade. A blast in the city of Bauchi killed
15 people. One bomb went off at a beer garden in Zuba, near the
capital, killing two people and wounding at least 11. Another
explosion in the northern city of Zaria also targeted a bar hours
after the inauguration.
(AP, 5/29/11)(AP, 5/30/11)
2011 May 29, Nigerian police
raided the Cross Foundation in Aba, a home allegedly being used to
force teenage girls to have babies that were then offered for sale
for trafficking or other purposes. Dr. Hyacinth Orikara was arrested
and 32 pregnant girls, aged 15-17, were rescued.
(AFP, 6/1/11)(Reuters, 6/2/11)
2011 May 29, In Pakistan gunmen
killed two Shiite policemen in Quetta city.
(AP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 29, In Peru activists
opposed to a silver mine in the southeastern Puno region rejected a
deal with the government and said protests will continue, even if it
means there will be no regional voting in the upcoming presidential
run-off.
(AFP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 29, In the Philippines
workers cleaned up more than 750 tons of fish that have died and
rotted on fish farms in Taal Lake near Taal volcano south of Manila.
Scientists said the onset of the rainy season led to a sharp drop in
water temperatures depleting oxygen levels.
(AP, 5/29/11)(AFP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 29, In Serbia several
thousand nationalist supporters of war-crimes suspect Ratko Mladic
clashed with riot police in Belgrade.
(SFC, 5/30/11, p.A2)
2011 May 29, In South Sudan a
week of fighting subsided near water points in Jonglei state with at
least 68 people killed. Nuer tribesmen allegedly attacked the area
and drove off with more than 100,000 cattle owned by the Murle.
(AP, 5/2/11)
2011 May 29, Advocacy group
Satellite Sentinel Project said new satellite images provide
evidence that northern Sudanese troops have committed war crimes,
including ethnic cleansing, in the contested border town of Abyei
where forces rolled in on May 21. Save the Children's U.K. office
said the conflict has displaced up to 35,000 children in the Abyei
region.
(AP, 5/29/11)
2011 May 29, Syrian government
troops backed by tanks attacked the towns of Rastan and Talbiseh in
the central province of Homs in an attempt to stop round-the-clock
protests there against Pres. Assad's regime. The toll of those shot
dead rose to 11 from a previously reported seven in Rastan and
Talbisa. Security forces reportedly opened fire in the early hours
at about 8,000 protesters in the northeastern town of Deir el-Zour,
wounding several people.
(AP, 5/29/11)(AFP, 5/30/11)
2011 May 29, In Yemen Islamist
militants tightened their grip on the coastal town of Zinjibar while
in the capital Sanaa a truce was holding to end nearly a week of
deadly street fighting that threatened to ignite a civil war.
(Reuters, 5/29/11)(SFC, 5/30/11, p.A5)
2011 May 29, In Zimbabwe a
police inspector was killed. 12 suspects, members of PM Morgan
Tsvangirai's former opposition party, were soon detained in a police
crackdown in a western Harare township. The group appeared in court
on June 3 with severe cuts, bruising and swollen limbs.
(AP, 6/3/11)

2012 May 29, Pres. Obama
awarded the Medal of Freedom to 13 recipients including: rocker Bob
Dylan, astronaut John Glenn, novelist Toni Morrison, union
pathbreaker Dolores Huerta, former Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, Girl
Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low (d.1927), Israeli president
Shimon Peres, former assistant attorney general John Doar, former
director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention William
Foege, Pat Summitt, who led the University of Tennessee women's
basketball team to more NCAA Final Four appearances than any other
team, Gordon Hirabayashi (d.2012), who fought the internment of
Japanese-Americans during WWII and Jan Karski (d.2000), a resistance
fighter against the Nazi occupation of Poland during WWII.
(SFC, 5/30/12, p.A7)
2012 May 29, Oakland, Ca.,
authorities said police and federal agents have arrested 60 of its
worst criminals as part of a 4-month undercover effort dubbed
“Operation Gideon III."
(SFC, 5/30/12, p.C3)
2012 May 29, Doc Watson
(b.1923), blind guitar picker and fold singer, died in North
Carolina. His work included 60 albums, 7 of which won Grammy awards.
(SFC, 5/30/12, p.C8)
2012 May 29, In Afghanistan
Taliban attacked a hilltop police post in northern Badakhshan
province's Warduj district, triggering heavy fighting that killed
eight policemen and six militants.
(AP, 5/30/12)
2012 May 29, In Egypt final
election results showed that that Mohammed Morsi won close to 5.8
million votes, or almost 25%, while Ahmed Shafiq garnered 5.5
million votes, or nearly 24%. Finishing third was leftist candidate
Hamdeen Sabahi with 4.8 million votes, or about 21%.
(AP, 5/29/12)
2012 May 29, In northern Italy
a magnitude 5.8 earthquake shook the region around Bologna, killing
at least 17 people.
(AP, 5/29/12)(AP, 5/30/12)
2012 May 29, Japanese film
director Kaneto Shindo (100), known for hard-hitting works dealing
with human nature and the effects of the atomic bombing of
Hiroshima, died at his home in Tokyo. Shindo directed nearly 50
films, with his final work, "A Postcard" winning the special jury
prize at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2011.
(AFP, 5/30/12)
2012 May 29, Japanese police
uncovered the frozen corpse of a woman and arrested Masaichi Yamada,
her 80-year-old husband, on suspicion of strangling her and keeping
her body in the freezer for up to 10 years.
(AFP, 5/30/12)
2012 May 29, Lesotho opposition
parties agreed to unite to bring down veteran PM Pakalitha Mosisili,
whose party failed to win an absolute majority in the weekend
parliamentary election.
(AFP, 5/30/12)
2012 May 29, Northern Mali
Tuareg rebels and hardline Islamist group Ansar Dine said plans to
join forces and proclaim an Islamic state have collapsed due to
fundamental differences.
(AFP, 5/29/12)
2012 May 29, The Philippines'
top judge was sacked after the Senate found him guilty of hiding
millions of dollars, in the biggest win of President Benigno
Aquino's anti-graft campaign. Supreme Court chief justice Renato
Corona was convicted of violating the constitution and betraying
public trust by failing to disclose some $4.2 million that he should
have declared.
(AFP, 5/29/12)(Econ, 6/2/12, p.50)
2012 May 29, Somalia's
president Sharif Shekh Ahmed escaped an ambush unharmed as Al-Qaeda
linked Shebab fighters attacked his armored convoy in the Afgoye
corridor. Shebab insurgents said they had fired on two foreign
warships that came in close to the key rebel port of Kismayo, the
first such reported incident as they face growing military pressure.
(AFP, 5/29/12)
2012 May 29, Sudanese troops
withdrew from the disputed territory of Abyei. Top negotiators for
Sudan and South Sudan met in Ethiopia for their first talks since
deadly border fighting last month took them to the brink of war.
(AFP, 5/29/12)
2012 May 29, In Syria monitors
said at least 19 people were killed in violence as clashes between
regime troops and rebels raged. One of those killed in Homs was
filmmaker and photography student Bassel Shehade, who returned to
Syria from the United States around three months ago. At least 7
nations, including France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain, Canada
and Australia, expelled Syrian diplomats to protest the May 25 Houla
killings, ramping up the pressure on Pres. Bashar Assad's regime.
Int’l. envoy Kofi Annan met with Assad to express "grave concern"
about the Houla killings and other violence.
(AFP, 5/29/12)(AP, 5/29/12)
2012 May 29, In Tanzania a
leading local rights group said some 3,000 people suspected of
witchcraft, mainly old women, have been lynched in Tanzania from
2005 to 2011.
(AFP, 5/29/12)
2012 May 29, Turkey’s PM
Erdogan called for legislation to restrict women’s access to
abortions.
(SFC, 5/30/12, p.A2)
2012 May 29, Yemen's army
pressed an offensive against southern towns held by al-Qaida-linked
fighters, with 11 militants and five soldiers killed in the clashes.
(AP, 5/29/12)

2013 May 29, Coursera, a
Mountain View, Ca., online learning startup, said it has formed
partnerships with 10 public universities and university systems to
develop courses that can be taken for credit either online or in a
blended classroom-online environment.
(SFC, 5/30/13, p.A8)(http://tinyurl.com/o2v8mub)
2013 May 29, Rev. Andrew
Greeley (b.1928), Chicago newspaper columnist and novelist, died in
Chicago. His work included over 100 non-fiction books and some 50
novels, which included a series of about a bishop-detective, Blackie
Ryan.
(SFC, 5/31/13, p.D7)(Econ, 6/8/13, p.94)
2013 May 29, A federal judge
ruled in favor of bankrupt Patriot Coal of St. Louis, Mo., to
significantly cut health care and pension benefits to thousands of
workers and retirees.
(SFC, 5/30/13, p.A5)
2013 May 29, Nevada powerbroker
Harvey Whittemore (59) was convicted by a federal jury in Reno on
three counts tied to almost $150,000 illegally funneled to Sen.
Harry Reid (D-Nev) in 2007.
(SFC, 5/30/13, p.A5)
2013 May 29, The Linchpins of
Liberty in Franklin, Tenn., and 24 other Tea Party groups sued the
IRS over claims the agency violated their constitutional rights by
delaying action on applications for tax-exempt status beginning in
2010.
(SFC, 5/30/13, p.A5)
2013 May 29, In eastern
Afghanistan 7 insurgents wearing police uniforms and bomb-laden
vests attacked a government compound in Panjshir, a usually secure
province, killing one police officer. All 7 militants were killed.
Two insurgents attacked a compound housing the International
Committee of the Red Cross Jalalabad, killing an Afghan guard before
security forces rescued seven foreigners.
(AP, 5/29/13)(AP, 5/30/13)
2013 May 29, In Bahrain a
bombing, described as a "terrorist" attack, wounded seven policemen.
Police the next day arrested 3 suspects.
(AP, 5/30/13)
2013 May 29, In China Sri
Lanka’s Pres. Mahinda Rajapaksa met with Premier Li Keqiang in
Beijing. Loans and declarations of profound friendship were secured.
(Econ, 6/8/13, p.63)
2013 May 29, It was reported
that Wan Long, chairman of China’s Shuanghui International has made
a 4.7 billion bid for Virginia-based meatpacker Smithfield Foods.
The purchase was endorsed by Smithfield's board but still require
approval from shareholders and US regulators.
(AP, 5/31/13)(http://tinyurl.com/k4sdobs)(Econ,
6/8/13, p.38)
2013 May 29, A UN spokesman
says that Congo's M23 rebels have fired several rockets on Goma over
the past week, killing 2 people.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, The European Union
granted France, Spain, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia
more time to bring their budget deficits under control to support
the bloc's shrinking economy. The European Commission approved
France’s request to postpone by 2 years the target of cutting its
budget deficit to 3% of GDP.
(AP, 5/29/13)(Econ, 6/1/13, p.55)
2013 May 29, Vincent Autin (40)
and his partner, Bruno Boileau (30) became the first gay couple to
marry in France.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, In Iraq evening
bomb blasts in two Baghdad neighborhoods killed least 30 people,
including several members of a wedding party in the mixed
Sunni-Shiite Jihad neighborhood.
(AP, 5/30/13)
2013 May 29, Human Rights Watch
in a report released saying Kenya police had arrested more than
1,000 asylum seekers between mid-November and late January and
accused Kenyan policemen of raping, beating, and extorting money
from refugees of Somali origin.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, Libya's parliament
chief, Mohammed al-Megarif, who served under Moammar Gadhafi before
becoming an opposition leader in exile, resigned, just weeks after
lawmakers passed a bill banning former regime officials from senior
government posts.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, Malaysian
prosecutors filed sedition charges against another five opposition
politicians and activists who urged Malaysians to protest what they
insist was a fraud-tainted victory by the long-ruling coalition in
recent national elections.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, Hurricane Barbara
drenched a sparsely populated stretch of Mexico's southern Pacific
coast with rain after making the second-earliest landfall since
reliable record-keeping began in 1966. It quickly lost strength over
land but not before killing at least two people, including a man
identified by local officials as a US surfer.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, In northeastern
Myanmar overnight violence between Buddhists and Muslims left one
person dead and four injured.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, A UN court in the
Netherlands convicted six Bosnian Croat political and military
leaders of persecuting, expelling and murdering Muslims during
Bosnia's war and said leaders in neighboring Croatia helped hatch
and execute their plan to carve out a Croat state in Bosnia.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, In Pakistan a
suspected US drone strike killed Waliur Rehman, the No. 2 commander
of the Pakistani Taliban, as well as 3 others in Miran Shah, North
Waziristan. The US wanted Rehman in connection with his alleged
involvement in the 2009 attack on Camp Chapman in Khost,
Afghanistan.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, A Soyuz capsule
carrying an American, Russian and Italian successfully docked with
the International Space Station, where the new crew will spend six
months conducting a variety of experiments.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, The Swiss
government announced that it will let banks circumvent the country's
strict client secrecy laws as part of an effort to end a
long-running tax evasion dispute with the United States.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, In Tunisia 3
foreign activists disrobed in front of the Ministry of Justice in
Tunis to protest against the jailing of Amina Sboui, a Tunisian
member of the Ukrainian feminist group FEMEN, quickly attracting a
crowd of offended Tunisians before the 3 women were hustled away by
police.
(AP, 5/29/13)
2013 May 29, In Venezuela a
free application for mobile devices, written by Jose Augusto
Montiel, was posted to let people notify one another where flour,
sugar, milk, cooking oil and toilet paper are for sale. Within 10
days it was downloaded more than 12,000 times.
(AP, 6/9/13)

2014 May 29, A US congressional
committee reported that “Operation Choke Point," an anti-fraud
campaign of the Justice Dept., has strangled legitimate businesses
that the government objects to for ideological reasons, such as
payday lenders or gun dealers.
(Econ, 6/7/14, p.80)
2014 May 29, In southern
billionaire Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, unveiled Dragon V2, a new
spacecraft designed to carry up to seven astronauts to the Int’l.
Space Station (ISS).
(SFC, 5/30/14, p.A4)
2014 May 29, In Maryland two
spellers were declared co-champions of the Scripps National Spelling
Bee. Indian-Americans Sriram Hathwar of New York and Ansun Sujoe of
Texas shared the title after a riveting final-round duel in which
they nearly exhausted the 25 designated championship words. They
become the fourth co-champions in the bee's 89-year history and the
first since 1962.
(AP, 5/30/14)
2014 May 29, In Afghanistan
roadside bombings across the country killed 4 people.
(AP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, Argentina said it
has reached a $9.7 billion deal with the Paris Club to resolve debts
unpaid since its economic crisis and default in 2001.
(AP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, Karlheinz Boehm
(86), an Austrian actor and human rights activist, died. In 1981 he
founded the Menschen fuer Menschen ("People for People") aid group
dedicated to helping people in Ethiopia.
(AP, 5/30/14)
2014 May 29, In Central African
Republic youths plundered a mosque in Bangui and barricaded streets
with burning tires in protest at an attack by Muslim gunmen on a
church a day earlier.
(Reuters, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, China’s health
officials said they expect 2 million extra babies per year as a
result of loosening its “one child" birth limits.
(SFC, 5/30/14, p.A2)
(AP, 5/30/14)
2014 May 29, In Egypt with
nearly all votes counted, retired field marshal Abdel-Fattah
el-Sissi won a crushing victory over his sole opponent in the
country's presidential election with more than 92 percent of the
votes. The interim president said turnout reached 46 percent.
(AP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, In western India a
woman was crushed to death after a conductor pushed her on a moving
train for boarding the wrong coach in Jalgaon, east of Mumbai. She
lost her balance, slipped into the gap between the coach and
platform and was run over by the train.
(AP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, Japan and North
Korea agreed to a deal in which Japan will relax sanctions in return
for a North Korean investigation of abductions in the 1970s and
1980s.
(Econ, 6/7/14, p.43)
2014 May 29, The Norwegian
Academy of Science and Letters announced that nine scientists have
won the biennial Kavli awards for theories about the first moments
of the universe, discoveries about the brain and techniques to let
researchers see ever-tinier things.
(AP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, Norwegian police
removed Greenpeace activists from a platform operated by Statoil,
which they boarded two days ago in a protest against drilling in
Arctic waters.
(AP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas asked PM Rami Hamdallah to head a new
national unity government which will bring together the feuding
Hamas and Fatah parties.
(Reuters, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, FBI agents in
Puerto Rico arrested judge Manuel Acevedo Hernandez.
(AP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, Russian President
Vladimir Putin signed a deal creating an economic union with
ex-Soviet states Belarus and Kazakhstan.
(AFP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, A Russian
spacecraft carrying a three-man crew docked successfully at the
International Space Station following a flawless launch.
(AP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, Saudi Arabia's
Health Ministry said 13 people have died over the last two weeks
from the Middle Eastern respiratory virus and that 186 people in
total have died from the MERS virus since it was discovered in 2012.
(AP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, In Spain police in
Barcelona arrested 23 people after a fourth night of clashes with
hooded youths.
(AP, 5/30/14)
2014 May 29, In Syria the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) kidnapped some 153
schoolchildren. They were on their way back to Ain al-Arab from
taking year-end school exams in the northern city of Aleppo.
(AFP, 7/1/14)
2014 May 29, More than 1,000
Thai troops and police sealed off one of Bangkok's busiest
intersections to prevent a planned protest, as authorities said they
would no longer allow any demonstrations against last week's
military coup.
(AP, 5/29/14)
2014 May 29, In Ukraine rebels
in the east shot down a government military helicopter amid heavy
fighting around Slovyansk in the Donetsk region, killing at least 12
soldiers including Gen. Serhiy Kulchytskiy. An insurgent leader
confirmed that his fighters were holding four missing observers and
their Ukrainian translator from the OSCE and promised they would be
released shortly.
(AP, 5/29/14)(AP, 5/30/14)